by Eoin Colfer
‘Holly?’ said Artemis urgently.
‘Wait,’ whispered Holly. ‘Just a few seconds more.’
The first troll in the line reached their island. This was obviously the pack leader.
He reared up to a height of almost three metres, shaking his shaggy head and howling at the artificial sky. Then he appeared to notice that Artemis and Holly were not in fact female trolls, and a savage rage took hold of his tiny brain. Dribbles of venom dropped from his tusks, and he inverted his talons for an upward slash. Trolls’ preferred kill strike was under the ribs; this popped the heart quickly and did not give the meat time to toughen.
More trolls crowded on to the tiny island, eager for a share in the kill or a shot at a new mate. Holly chose that moment to act. She swung the tele-pod upwards, pointing the buzzing screen directly at the nearest troll. The creature reared back, clawing at the hated light as if it were a solid enemy. The light blasted the troll’s retinas, sending him staggering backwards into his companions. A bunch of the animals tumbled into the river. Panic spread back along the line like a virus. The creatures reacted to water as though it were acid dappling their fur, back-pedalling furiously towards the shore. This was no orderly retreat. Anything in the way got scythed or bitten. Gouts of venom and blood flew through the air, and the water bubbled as though it were boiling. The trolls’ howls of bloodlust changed to keening screams of pain and terror.
This can’t be real, thought a stunned Artemis Fowl.
I must be hallucinating. Perhaps I am in a coma following the fall from the hotel window. And because his brain provided this possible explanation, his memories stayed under lock and key.
‘Grab my belt,’ Holly ordered, advancing across the makeshift bridge.
Artemis obeyed instantly. This was not the time to argue about leadership. In any case, if there was the slightest possibility that this were actually happening, then Captain Short was better qualified to handle these creatures.
Holly wielded the tele-pod like a portable laser cannon, advancing step by step across the makeshift bridge. Artemis tried to concentrate on keeping his balance on the treacherous ground. They stepped from rock to rock, wobbling like novice tightrope walkers. Holly swung the tele-pod in smooth arcs, blasting trolls from every angle.
Too many, thought Artemis. There are too many. We can never make it.
But there was no future in giving up. So they kept going, taking two steps forward and one step back.
A crafty bull ducked low, avoiding Holly’s first sweep. He reached out one taloned hand, cracking the pod’s waterproof casing. Holly stumbled backwards, knocking over Artemis. The pair keeled over into the river, landing with a solid thump in the shallow water.
Artemis felt the air shoot from his lungs, and took an instinctive breath.
Unfortunately, he took in water rather than air. Holly kept her elbows locked, so the ruptured casing stayed out of the river. Some water drops crept into the crack and sparks began to play across the screen.
Holly struggled to her feet, simultaneously aiming the screen at the bull troll.
Artemis came up behind her, coughing water from his lungs.
‘The screen’s damaged,’ panted Holly. ‘I don’t know how much time we have.’
Artemis wiped his hair from his eyes. ‘Go,’ he spluttered. ‘Go.’
They trudged through the water, stepping around thrashing trolls. Holly chose a clear spot on the bank to climb ashore. It was a relief to be on dry land again, but at least the water had been on their side, as it were. Now they were truly in troll territory.
The remaining animals encircled them at a safe distance. Whenever one came too close, Holly swung the tele-pod in its direction, and the creature skipped back as though stung.
Artemis fought the cold and the fatigue and the shock in his system. His ankle felt scalded where the troll had snagged him.
‘We need to go straight for the temple,’ he said through chattering teeth. ‘Up the scaffolding.’
‘OK. Hold on.’
Holly took several deep breaths, building up her strength. Her arms were sore from holding the tele-pod but she would not let the fatigue show in her face, nor the fear. She looked those trolls straight in their red eyes and let them know they were dealing with a formidable enemy.
‘Ready?’
‘Ready,’ replied Artemis, although he was no such thing.
Holly took one final breath, then charged. The trolls were not expecting this tactic. After all, what kind of creature would attack a troll? They broke ranks in the face of the arc of white light, and their disconcertedness lasted just long enough for Artemis and Holly to charge through the hole in the line.
They hurried up the incline towards the temple. Holly made no attempt to avoid the trolls, running straight at them. When they lashed out in temporary blindness, they only caused more confusion among themselves. A dozen vicious squabbles erupted in Holly and Artemis’s wake as animals accidentally sliced each other with razor-sharp talons. Some of the cannier trolls used the opportunity to settle old scores. The squabbles chain-reacted across the plain until the entire area was a mass of dust and writhing animals.
Artemis grunted and puffed his way up the ravine, his fingers wrapped round Holly’s belt. Captain Short’s breathing had settled into a steady rhythm of quick bursts.
I am not physically fit, thought Artemis. And it may cost me dearly. I need to exercise more than my brain in future. If I have a future.
The temple loomed above them, a scale model but still over fifteen metres high.
Dozens of identical columns rising into the holographic clouds supported a triangular roof decorated with intricate plaster mouldings. The columns’ lower regions were scarred by a thousand claw marks where younger trolls had scampered out of harm’s way. Artemis and Holly clambered up the twenty or so steps to the columns themselves.
Fortunately, there were no trolls on the scaffolding. All the animals were busy trying to kill each other or avoid being killed, but it would be only a matter of seconds before they remembered that there were intruders in their midst. Fresh meat. Not many of the trolls had tasted elf meat, but those who had were eager to try it again.
Only one of the present gathering had tasted human meat, and the memory of its sweetness still haunted his dull brain at night.
It was this particular troll who hauled himself from the river, carrying ten extra kilos of moisture weight. He casually cuffed a cub who had come too close, and sniffed the air. There was a new scent here. A scent he could remember from his short time under the moon. The scent of man. The mere recognition of the smell brought saliva flowing from the glands in his throat. He set off at a pitched run towards the Temple.
Soon a rough group of flesh-hungry beasts was hurtling towards the scaffolding.
‘We’re back on the menu,’ noted Holly when she reached the scaffolding.
Artemis unhooked his fingers from the LEP captain’s belt. He would have answered, but his lungs demanded oxygen. He whooped in gulps of air, resting his knuckles on his knees.
Holly took his elbow. ‘No time for that, Artemis. You. have to climb.’
‘After you,’ Artemis managed to gasp. He knew his father would never allow a lady to remain in distress while he himself fled.
‘No time for discussion,’ said Holly, steering Artemis by the elbow. ‘Climb for the sun. I’ll buy us a few seconds with the tele-pod. Go.’
Artemis looked into Holly’s eyes to say thank you. They were round and hazel and… familiar? Memories fought to be free of their bonds, pounding against cell walls.
‘Holly?’ he said.
Holly spun him round to the bars, and the moment was gone. ‘Up. You’re wasting time.’
Artemis marshalled his exhausted limbs, trying to co-ordinate his movements.
Step, grab, pull. It should be easy enough. He’d climbed ladders before. One ladder at least. Surely.
The scaffold bars were coated with gripped rubber, e
specially for climbers, and were spaced precisely forty centimetres apart, the comfortable reach distance of the average fairy. Also, coincidentally, the comfortable reach of a fourteen-year-old human.
Artemis started to climb, feeling the strain in his arms before he had risen six steps. It was too early to be tired yet. There was too far to go.
‘Come on, Captain,’ he gasped over his shoulder. ‘Climb.’
‘Not just yet,’ said Holly. She had her back to the scaffold and was trying to find some pattern in the approaching bunches of trolls.
There had been an in-service course on troll attacks in Police Plaza. But that had been on the basis of a one-on-one situation. To Holly’s eternal embarrassment, the lecturer had used video footage of her own tangle with a troll in Italy over two years previously. ‘Here,’ the lecturer had said, freezing Holly’s image in the big screen and rapping it with a telescopic pointer, ‘is a classic example of how not to do it.’
This was a completely different scenario. They had never received instruction on what to do when attacked by an entire pack of trolls in their own habitat. No one, the instructors reasoned, would be that stupid.
There were two converging groups coming straight towards her, the one from the river led by a veritable monster with anaesthetic venom dripping from both tusks.
Holly knew that if one drop of that venom got under her skin, she would fall into a happy stupor. And even if she escaped the troll’s claws, the slow poison would eventually paralyse her.
The second group approached from the western ridge, composed mainly of latecomers and cubs. There were a few females in the centre of the temple itself, but they were using the distraction to pick meat from abandoned carcasses.
Holly flicked the tele-pod’s setting to low. She would have to time this exactly right for maximum effect. It was the last chance she would get, because once she started to climb, she could no longer aim.
The trolls sped up the Temple steps, jostling for first place. The two groups were approaching at right angles, both heading directly for Holly. Their leaders launched themselves from a distance, determined to get the first bite of the intruder. Their lips were peeled back to reveal rows of carnivorous teeth, and their eyes were focused solely on the target. And that was when Holly acted. She flicked the brightness setting to high and scorched the retinas of the two beasts while they were still in the air. With piercing howls they swatted at the hated light, crashing to the ground in a melee of arms, claws, tusks and teeth. Each troll assumed he was being attacked by a rival group, and in seconds the scaffold’s base was a chaos of primeval violence.
Holly took full advantage of the confusion, skipping lithely up the first three rungs of the metal structure. She clipped the tele-pod to her belt so that it pointed downwards like a rear gun. Not much protection, but better than nothing.
In moments, she had caught up with Artemis. The human boy’s breath was ragged and his progress was slow. Blood dripped from the wound on his ankle. Holly could easily have passed him, but instead she hooked an arm through the scaffold bars and checked on the troll situation. Just as well. One relatively little guy was scaling the bars with the agility of a mountain gorilla. His immature tusks barely jutted beyond his lips, but those tusks were sharp and venom gathered in beads along the tips. Holly turned the screen on him, and he released his grip to shield his scorched eyes. An elf would have been smart enough to hang on with one hand and use the other forearm to shield the eyes, but trolls are not much further up the IQ scale than stink worms, and they act almost completely on instinct.
The little troll tumbled back to earth, landing on the shaggy, writhing carpet below. He was instantly dragged into the brawl. Holly returned to the climb, feeling the tele-pod knock against her back. Artemis’s progress was painfully slow, and in less than a minute she was at Artemis’s shoulder.
‘Are you all right?’
Artemis nodded, tight-lipped. But his eyes were wide, on the verge of panic. Holly had seen that look before, on the faces of battle-stressed LEP officers. She needed to get the Mud Boy to safety before he lost his reason.
‘Come on now, Artemis. Just a few more steps. We’re going to make it.’
Artemis closed his eyes for five seconds, breathing deeply through his nose.
When he opened them again, they shone with a new resolve. ‘Very well, Captain. I’m ready.’
Artemis reached above him for the next bar, hauling himself forty centimetres closer to salvation. Holly followed, urging him on like a drill sergeant.
It took a further minute to reach the roof itself. By this time the trolls had remembered what they were chasing and began to scale the scaffolding. Holly dragged Artemis on to the slanted roof, and they scampered on all fours towards its highest point. The plaster was white and unmarked; in the low light it seemed as though they were walking across a field of snow.
Artemis paused. The sight had awoken a vague memory.
‘Snow,’ he said uncertainly. ‘I remember something…’
Holly caught his shoulder, dragging him forward. ‘Yes, Artemis. The Arctic, remember? Later, we’ll discuss it at great length, when there are no trolls trying to eat us.’
Artemis snapped back to the present. ‘Very well. Good tactics.’
The temple roof sloped upwards at a forty-degree angle towards the crystal orb that was the fake sun. The pair crawled as quickly as Artemis’s exhausted limbs would allow. A ragged trail of blood marked their path across the white plaster. The scaffold shook and banged against the roof as the trolls climbed ever closer.
Holly straddled the roof’s apex, reaching up to the crystal sun. The surface was smooth beneath her fingers.
‘D’Arvit!’ she swore. ‘I can’t find the power port. There should be an external socket.’
Artemis crawled round to the other side. He was not particularly afraid of heights, but even so he tried not to look down. One did not have to suffer from vertigo to be worried by a fifteen-metre drop and a pack of ravenous trolls. He stretched upwards, probing the globe with the fingers of one hand. His index finger found a small indent.
‘I’ve got something,’ he announced.
Holly scooted round to his side, examining the hole.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘An external power port. Power cells have uniform connection points, so the cuffs’ cells should clip right on.’
She fumbled the cuffs from her pocket, popping the cell covers. The cells themselves were about the size of credit cards, and glowed bright blue along their length.
Holly stood up on the razor-edge rooftop, balancing nimbly on her toes. The trolls were swarming over the lip of the roof now. Advancing like the hounds of hell. The white roof plaster was blanketed by the black, brown and ginger of troll fur. Their howls and stink preceded them as they closed in on Holly and Artemis.
Holly waited until they were all over the lip, then she slid the power cells into the globe’s socket. The globe buzzed, vibrated into life, then flashed once: a blinding wall of light. For a moment, the entire exhibit glowed brilliant white, then the globe faded again with a high-pitched whine.
The trolls rolled like balls on a tilted pool table. Some tumbled over the edge of the roof, but most collected on the lip, where they lay, whining and scratching their faces.
Artemis closed his eyes to accelerate the return of his night vision. ‘I had hoped the cell would power the sun for longer. It seems like a lot of effort for such a brief reprieve.’
Holly pulled out the dead cells, tossing them aside. ‘I suppose a globe like this needs a lot of juice.’
Artemis blinked then sat comfortably on the roof, clasping his knees.
‘Still. We have some time. It can take nocturnal creatures up to fifteen minutes to recover their orientation following exposure to bright light.’
Holly sat beside him. ‘Fascinating. You’re very calm all of a sudden.’
‘I have no choice,’ said Artemis simply. ‘I have analysed the situation and co
ncluded that there is no way for us to escape. We are on top of a ridiculous model of the Temple of Artemis, surrounded by temporarily blinded trolls. As soon as they recover, they will lope up here and devour us. We have perhaps a quarter of an hour to live, and I have no intention of spending it in hysterics for Opal Koboi’s amusement.’
Holly looked up, searching the hemisphere for cameras. At least a dozen tell-tale red lights winked in the darkness. Opal would be able to watch her revenge from every angle.
Artemis was right. Opal would be tickled pink if they fell to pieces for the cameras. She would probably replay the video to cheer herself up when being princess of the world pot to be too stressful.
Holly drew back her arm, sending the spent power cells skidding across the roof.
It seemed then that this was it. She felt more frustrated than scared. Julius’s final order had been to save Artemis, and she hadn’t managed to accomplish even that.
‘I’m sorry you don’t remember Julius,’ she said. ‘You two argued a lot, but behind it all he admired you. It was Butler he really liked, though. Those two were on the same wavelength. Two old soldiers.’
Below them, the trolls were gathering themselves. Blinking away the stars in their eyes.
Artemis slapped some of the dust from his trousers.
‘I do remember, Holly. I remember it all. Especially you. It’s a real comfort to have you here.’
Holly was surprised — shocked even. More by Artemis’s tone than by what he had actually said, though that was surprising too. She had never heard Artemis sound so warm, so sincere. Usually emotional displays were difficult for the boy, and he stumbled through them awkwardly. This wasn’t like him at all.
‘That’s very nice, Artemis,’ she said after a moment’s consideration. ‘But you don’t have to pretend for me.’
Artemis was puzzled. ‘How did you know? I thought I portrayed the emotions perfectly.’
Holly looked down at the massing trolls. They were advancing warily up the slope, heads down in case of a second flash.
‘Nobody’s that perfect. That’s how I knew.’